Expert: Alex Gray - 12/15/2006

Question
Thank you so much for your help.  I have used the bitmap colour mask tool and have taken away most of the white background but now there is a fuzzy white line around the logo.  How do i get rid of this?

Thank you

Natasha
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
I have a company logo which is a circle, but the square box behind the circle is white.  How can I change the colour of this to match the background colour on my page.
Thank you
-----Answer-----
Natasha

IF THE LOGO OBJECT IS A BITMAP (ie a photo, a scan, made of pixels)

If there is no white in the logo itself, You can use the 'bitmap color mask' tool to 'hide' all white regions of the bitmap - making them see-through. This works well unless your image also contains white, in which case you need to make them off-white or place a white object behind the bulk area of the bitmap to show through.

Basically after selecting this tool you can use an eyedropper to select a colour from your object, and specify that it should be made invisible. You can set a tolerance on it so that very closeby colours will also go see-through. Lookup bitmap color mask in the online help for more.

Or, the 'proper' bitmap clipping method - open the bitmap for editing in PhotoPaint convert the background image into a floating object, then erase the unwanted parts leaving the 'no background' chequerboard pattern showing around the object, save that as a CPT file and import that into Draw. Draw understands PhotoPaint's clipping and will leave the border regions invisible.

IF IT'S A VECTOR FILE (drawing objects, text etc)

Draw a circle exactly fitting the logo outline, and move the logo to one side so you can click the circle without selecting the logo. Now right-drag the logo onto the circle until you see a target (circle and cross-hairs) cursor. Let go the mouse button and choose "Powerclip inside" from the context menu that pops up.

Your logo will be centred in the circle and placed in it like an object inside a container. Anything outside the edge of the container will not show - it will be 'clipped'.
Look up Powerclip in online help for mor einformation.

Hope that helps.

Alex

Answer
That will be becasue the original logo has been 'anti-aliased' - that is rather than having a hard-edge to the image, it has a narrow band of graduate shades between the logo border colour and white to give an illusion of a smoother edge. Zoom in really big and you will see it.

If this is the only copy of the logo you have you can't elminate this totally without some editing of the image, but you might find a quick compromise by adjust the 'tolerance' setting in the bitmap colour mask. Select the white entry in the colour mask dialogue and move the slider along a bit so the number rises to, say 10, and apply that. This hides not just the selected white, but everything within 10% of it. It may be that you have pale grey regions in the logo, in which case you might have a problem with them turning transparent.

Alternatively, if your logo has a relatively thick border area of the same colour (eg a black border or background, you can draw a hard edge around the logo of the same colour as the existing edge, but without any antialiasing.

Lot sof other ways to address this depending on cases.

Alex